BCLA Readers' Advisory Interest Group

Category Archives: RA Events and Training

The BCLA Readers’ Advisory Interest Group is proud and grateful for the success of RA in a Day 2016! Our warmest appreciation and thanks to everyone who attended the event, or who followed along on social media (#RAinaDay16). We would also like to thank our supportive sponsor Library Bound.

This year the event was held on October 18, 2016 in the Vancouver Public Library’s Central Branch. The Readers’ Advisory Interest Group would like to acknowledge that this event took place on the ancestral, traditional and unceded Aboriginal territories of the Coast Salish Peoples. Continue reading →

Presented by the BCLA Readers’ Advisory Interest Group, this event is about building your RA confidence, reminding you about what you already know, learning to better serve your patrons as readers advisors and enjoying this practical professional development event.

This year we are back in downtown Vancouver, and we are excited about our workshop that explores the relationship between library catalogues, readers, and readers’ advisors, with Samuel Richmond, Head of Bibliographic Services at VPL.

We are honoured to have a keynote speech by Dr. Catherine Sheldrick Ross, professor and former Dean in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at the University of Western Ontario. Sheldrick Ross authored The Pleasures of Reading: A Booklover’s Alphabet which drew on over 300 open-ended interviews with avid readers to explore questions about the experience of pleasure-reading.

Last autumn, a number of fellow library school students and I decided to organize a Readers’ Advisory Workshop for SLAIS students. This was in response to feedback from our peers regarding the lack of Readers’ Advisory education in our classrooms, and a desire to develop some knowledge and skills on our own. We decided to focus on some basic topics that we were interested in learning about and sharing, as well as what we thought would appeal to our potential participants.

Despite the fact that we held a two-hour workshop at the end of a busy semester, we had a really great turn-out of students who were willing to take a break from their end-of-term workload and talk about Readers’ Advisory and books with us.

Lightning Talks

The organizers contributed lightning talks on different RA topics:

Intro to RA Basics, including a brief history of RA, read-alikes & appeal factors

Genre Roundtable

Each of the organizers prepared a quick introduction to a genre, including why people like to read it, and some important titles to know. We took a tour through Mystery, Fantasy, Feminist Memoirs, and Romance. We encouraged our participants to feel free to discuss a genre they were interested in, too! While acknowledging that it wasn’t a genre, one of our participants shared some of her experiences and recommended resources on providing LGBTQIA+ RA service.

Some of the takeaways from our genre discussions included:

The importance of incorporating diversity in our reading and our recommendations. Sometimes we need to make the effort to seek out diverse genre lit, and avoid simply falling back on “classics” of the genre, which are likely not diverse.

The surprising number of sub-genres that we didn’t know existed (cozy mysteries!) and the confusion of blurring genres (where does fantasy end and sci-fi begin?).

Discussion of what “genre” means, and how broader themes and topics like LGBTQIA+ can become confused with genre.

Bookslam Demo and Recommendation Hour

We had hoped to conclude with an informal bookslam demonstration and a reading recommendation exchange, in order to practice booktalking and recommendation skills. We’d even encouraged participants to bring a recently read book or a favourite book with them. Unfortunately, we ran out of time!

Reflections and Opportunities

Organizing and facilitating a two-hour workshop was only possible with the help and collaboration of all of the organizers. Thanks, everyone!!

We provided snacks and drinks, which were vital sources of sustenance during our two-hour discussion.

We tried to build interactive sections into the workshop, and unfortunately we ran out of time before we were able to get to the recommendations part (the bookslam and booktalking). I would definitely try to build that more cohesively into the workshop next time, as we were dissappointed to miss out on that interactive element.

Our participants brought really great ideas, experiences, and questions with them, which spoke to the interest and enthusiasm for learning and practicing RA. I hope to see more events in the future, and I encourage students in MLIS and Lib Tech programs to develop their own RA events.

Chloe Riley is the SLAIS student representative on the Readers’ Advisory Interest Group. She’s currently a student in the MLIS program at SLAIS, and works at the Vancouver Public Library.

I was perusing the Adult Reading Round Table website, “a group dedicated to developing readers’ advisory skills and promoting reading for pleasure through public libraries in the Chicago area,” which I learned about in a webinar a few months ago. While reading about their leadership recommendations for book club leaders, I discovered a link to the website Book Movement. This website is a resource for book club groups–covering 35,000 book clubs across the United States and what books they recommend and why. In addition to learning about book club options and receiving weekly book club picks, you can track your club’s RSVPs and send out automatic reminders and reading guides via automatic emails. Although I have not joined this resource yet (more emails!?), I am following them on Facebook and would be curious to hear from anyone who participates in their services. Have you used www.bookmovement.com?

For those of you interested in the Loan Stars program, they are offering a free webinar this Wed, March 9 from 10-10:30am (Vancouver time) to give you the low down on how to participate in Loan Stars:

Join BookNet Canada to learn everything you need to know to participate in Loan Stars, the new readers’ advisory service fueled by voting library staff across the country. Plus, get a guided tour of CataList, the online catalogue tool where Loan Stars voting takes place, to discover how to get the most out of your account, including accessing digital galleys, ordering books, exporting MARC records, and more.

This is a good opportunity to learn more if you’ve signed up for Loan Stars with enthusiasm, but stalled in the actual process of reading and selecting your upcoming favourite titles.

The January 2016 What Are You Reading blog post about Reading Challenges inspired us at Surrey Libraries to launch a staff challenge. We had been discussing ways in which we can encourage more diversity in our own reading habits and help our Surrey Libraries Book Blog be more reflective of the Surrey community. Therefore, we launched the Surrey Libraries Diverse Books Challenge for Staff!

This is a fun, optional reading challenge adapted from this tumblr post, which was inspired by the We Need Diverse Books movement. We are encouraging Surrey Libraries staff to read and submit reviews to the Surrey Libraries Books Blog for a chance to win prizes.

Here’s how it works:

1) Participation is 100% voluntary

2) Read books fitting one, two, or several of the criteria below. Read one book, read two books, read green books, read blue books. Feel emboldened to read books that fit more than one of the below criteria – intersectionality is encouraged!

3) Write a short review for the Surrey Libraries Book Blog and email it to Meghan S. Mention that your book was read by participating in the “Surrey Libraries: We Read Diverse Books Challenge” and your name will be entered in a prize draw for a gift card.

4) A draw slip will be entered for every review.

5) The challenge is launching March 7thand ends May 8th

6) Happy spring reading!

Challenge Criteria

Surrey author

Book translated from one of the top 5 unofficial languages of Surrey (i.e. Punjabi, Mandarin, Tagalog, Hindi, or Korean)

Here are our bookslam titles from October 20th’s RA in a Day session. We hope you enjoyed hearing about them as much as we did reading them! Did any of the titles pique your interest? let us know in the comments below.